How could I not go to a session at the PNWA conference with such an alluring title? Having sent out five query letters and having received four silences and one printed rejection postcard in return, I definitely qualifed as a Reject. But in the publishing industry, where rejections hover around 98%, I knew this session wouldn't be me and three other Losers circling up our chairs.
In fact, by the time this session rolled around, I already had a very good guess why I was a Reject. Or, at least, an Instant Reject. After all, only one agent had even gotten a writing sample. The rest took one look at the query letter and hit Delete. Firstly, my pitch was too wordy. But if I managed to hold them past three sentences, they choked when they hit my novel's Word Count. Instead of writing a decent first novel that came in around 80,000-100,000 words, I'd written a 130,000-word behemoth. Apparently this is a no-no, unless you write sci-fi or fantasy, and even then, you'd better not be a first-time author.
If I didn't know my word count threw me in the Auto Reject pile when I started the conference, I sure did by the end. Different agents had their upper limits (the most generous being 120,000, but even she said she would Delete 130K "on a bad day"), but I was beyond all of them. And in my live pitch, the agent and I were having a lovely time talking my plot, my imagined audience, what kind of writing career I would like, etc., and she'd already asked me to send three chapters, but when she found out how long it was, her face fell. "That's long," she said simply.
So I've been furiously slashing and burning (it now stands at 123K+ and I'm not done), but without a professional editor, I doubt it'll ever see 90,000. A learning experience. Really, it's not so shocking when I consider the concrete costs of printing long books. Long books are more expensive, simply. And if you're not an established author, no one wants to foot the bill for your long book. Not to mention decimate great swathes of old-growth forest for paper to print it on.
I seem to be the only person in America who, upon opening a trade-size paperback, puts it back on the shelf if it's only 250 pages with big print and wide spacing. I hate that! Give me some meat!
What do you think? Short book, long book?
Showing posts with label query letters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label query letters. Show all posts
Monday, August 3, 2009
Friday, June 5, 2009
Tan Lines
My mother calls me yesterday. "I got your book!" she says. "I've only read one page, but I think you write like Amy Tan."
A few words of explanation here:
(1) This is classic my-mother. She also read one sentence of my very first blog post (not on this site) and immediately Commented, "I love your writing style! This is a great blog!" As if none of my three readers who came afterward wouldn't guess that that had to be my mother. Moreover, I don't think she's read my blog since, which is why it's safe for me to blog about her.
(2) My mother admitted later that she couldn't read my book right now because she was currently reading--you guessed it--Amy Tan. THE BONESETTER'S DAUGHTER, to be precise, which I also enjoyed, though it was nothing like my writing in style or content. I wish!
(3) My husband's take, after looking mystified and saying, "Your writing isn't at all like Amy Tan's!" was to decide, "maybe she meant you're both Chinese." There you have it, folks, Amy Tan and I are both Chinese, so buy my book, just like you buy hers.
Not that comparisons aren't helpful in describing a work.
At the recent SCBWI conference there was a session to review query letters, aloud and in front of everyone. Even anonymously done it was agonizing. Like having your picture put up on the screen and having them ask, "Would you date this person? Yeah, me neither, but why not? Why exactly is this person so repulsive?" (But I digress.)
Occasionally writers would pitch their work by comparing it to existing published books. I don't know if it was just the luck of the draw, but most of the projects pitched could have been TWILIGHT-crossed-with-FILL-IN-THE-BLANK. And TWILIGHT was, in fact, frequently enlisted. One memorable project was, according to the author, TWILIGHT crossed with ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, HARRY POTTER, and BETSY-TACY. What??? Does that mean a five-year-old girl protagonist living on Prince Edward Island who turns out to be a witch who falls for a vampire? Or does it mean a red-headed vampire girl growing up in Minnesota who goes to Hogwarts as an exchange student? In either case SOLD--I'm buying a copy. My own pitch, being about a ten-year-old (male) pastor's kid, didn't have any ready comparisons, so I didn't include any. Umm...SUPERFUDGE crossed with PEACE LIKE A RIVER, only without the murders, cross-country pursuit, and mystical events?
I originally thought of MOURNING as MITFORD crossed with SEX AND THE CITY but abandoned that. Then I thought of MITFORD crossed with BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, which was a little closer, except that it isn't very MITFORD, apart from the churchgoing protagonist. You'll have to let me know what you think yourself. One thing I can tell you for sure: it's not Amy Tan.
A few words of explanation here:
(1) This is classic my-mother. She also read one sentence of my very first blog post (not on this site) and immediately Commented, "I love your writing style! This is a great blog!" As if none of my three readers who came afterward wouldn't guess that that had to be my mother. Moreover, I don't think she's read my blog since, which is why it's safe for me to blog about her.
(2) My mother admitted later that she couldn't read my book right now because she was currently reading--you guessed it--Amy Tan. THE BONESETTER'S DAUGHTER, to be precise, which I also enjoyed, though it was nothing like my writing in style or content. I wish!
(3) My husband's take, after looking mystified and saying, "Your writing isn't at all like Amy Tan's!" was to decide, "maybe she meant you're both Chinese." There you have it, folks, Amy Tan and I are both Chinese, so buy my book, just like you buy hers.
Not that comparisons aren't helpful in describing a work.
At the recent SCBWI conference there was a session to review query letters, aloud and in front of everyone. Even anonymously done it was agonizing. Like having your picture put up on the screen and having them ask, "Would you date this person? Yeah, me neither, but why not? Why exactly is this person so repulsive?" (But I digress.)
Occasionally writers would pitch their work by comparing it to existing published books. I don't know if it was just the luck of the draw, but most of the projects pitched could have been TWILIGHT-crossed-with-FILL-IN-THE-BLANK. And TWILIGHT was, in fact, frequently enlisted. One memorable project was, according to the author, TWILIGHT crossed with ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, HARRY POTTER, and BETSY-TACY. What??? Does that mean a five-year-old girl protagonist living on Prince Edward Island who turns out to be a witch who falls for a vampire? Or does it mean a red-headed vampire girl growing up in Minnesota who goes to Hogwarts as an exchange student? In either case SOLD--I'm buying a copy. My own pitch, being about a ten-year-old (male) pastor's kid, didn't have any ready comparisons, so I didn't include any. Umm...SUPERFUDGE crossed with PEACE LIKE A RIVER, only without the murders, cross-country pursuit, and mystical events?
I originally thought of MOURNING as MITFORD crossed with SEX AND THE CITY but abandoned that. Then I thought of MITFORD crossed with BRIDGET JONES' DIARY, which was a little closer, except that it isn't very MITFORD, apart from the churchgoing protagonist. You'll have to let me know what you think yourself. One thing I can tell you for sure: it's not Amy Tan.
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